National Outdoor Event Association announces full convention programme

The National Outdoor Event Association (NOEA) has announced its full Convention programme for 2019, which is built around the theme ‘Who’s Looking After Who?: Safety & Responsibility at Events’, and including a specialist session around the new ‘Exclusion Zone’.

The programme will kick off with a keynote address from Geoff Ellis, Chief Executive, DF Concerts, who will set the tone for the day. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the exclusion zone, including thoughts from Becky Stevens, Hybred Events;Andrew Fraser, Andrew Fraser Associates; Philip Day, Laceys Solicitors; and Alysha Sargent, Leeds Castle, moderated by Nick Morgan from We Are the Fair. 

While the first sessions will focus on who events need to be responsible for in terms of audiences, it will be followed by a specialist session on how events can look after the people and volunteers’ they bring in to support the event. The session, entitled ‘Who Looks After the People who Look After the People’, will be moderated by Karen Melanby from mental health charity, MIND, and include insights from Linda Krawecke, Tiger Tea, industry leader Penny Mellor and Jean Lenihan, ‘Festival Site Mum’ at the Black Deer Festival.

The day will also include a workshop session, led by Bev Osborn from Training 4 Resilience, featuring a ‘live’ crises situation that will test each delegate’s ability to decision make under fire. This theme will be bought to life even further later in the day with a presentation from Alan Tungate, ACT (National) Ltd. former, Met Police Public Order Command with responsibility for the Sporting Events in London, who will talk about what happens when Gold Command takes over an event.

There will also be sessions on ‘Who’s Coming: Working with Ticketing Data’ from Matt Evans, See Tickets, and ‘Who Looks After the Next Generation of Professionals?’ with Caroline Jackson, former lecturer at Bournemouth University. The day will end with a more relaxed and tongue in cheek ‘debate’ between Alan Lyons, Show Manager Bath & West Show Ground and Chris Woodford, ACT National, who will bring together the themes of the day and debate them with input from attendees of the convention. 

The date of the convention is 27^thNovember, and will once again take place at The Guildhall, in historic Bath, and precede NOEA’s annual awards event. Last year the event saw over 150 delegates in attendance with more expected for 2019. 

For more information or to book, go to noea.org.uk/annual-convention.